


Sanity Check

by recklessly_confined



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-12
Updated: 2018-05-12
Packaged: 2019-05-05 15:33:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14621688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/recklessly_confined/pseuds/recklessly_confined
Summary: “With your permission, ma’am,” he finally spoke slowly, his voice low, the barest hint of a grin twitching at the corner of his mouth. “I’d like to bunk here tonight. With you.”





	Sanity Check

**Author's Note:**

> _I’m a little late to the Mass Effect world, but hey – inspiration strikes when it strikes._   
>  _For all the Shenko fans of the world._

Sanity check. That’s what Kaidan had called it, and upon reflection he felt that truer words were never spoken. Their “date” had gone better than he ever allowed himself to hope for and, as a result, his sanity was very safely in check. Their contented silence on the walk back to the Normandy was a refreshing change.

_Cleared the air_ , she’d said. They’d done more than that, he thought with a happy constriction in his chest. The confusion of the last year since their meeting on Horizon had all but faded away. It was…the most sane feeling in the world to be able to share this space with her and feel nothing but calm. 

Well, amidst other things. A sanity check had gone hand-in-hand with a heart-to-heart; a much needed one at that. If Kaidan was honest, he’d hoped at minimum to make peace over any last shreds of distrust or uncertainty between them. _As friends, as more than friends_ , he’d told her back at Huerta. _Always leave yourself a way out, Alenko_. After everything, clearing the air with her was all he had allowed himself to be optimistic for.

_Wanting_ more, however, was something else entirely. And what better moment to be bold and upfront with the woman you loved than when the reapers were knocking at your figurative front door? He felt her fingers graze lightly against the back of his hand as they walked – up the presidium, past the ponds, catching the airy tone of a nearby Avina – and realized suddenly that her gentle touch was not meant to be an accident.

As she stepped up to settle into a rapid transit car, he gripped her hand to help her in, following behind her with a gentle click of the door. Her hand settled in his lap, his fingers entwining fully with hers, and the contented smile that crossed her face at his gesture made his throat catch.

Sanity check. He felt sane alright, saner than he could remember as their cab carried them ambiently down to the shuttle bay. Hearing the emotion in her voice at her admission – he could feel the pain she felt too, the loneliness. He hadn’t imagined it. _I can’t bury what I feel for you anymore_. His greatest fear after their run-in on Horizon had been that she didn’t care, that what they’d had before he’d lost her on Alchera hadn’t meant as much to her as it had to him.

_Always leave yourself a way out, Alenko_. He hadn’t with Shepard, and for over two years he had grappled with the pain of that loss. But now, seeing her before him – Shepard, _his_ Shepard – brought a spark back that he worried had burnt out when she went down with the SR-1. She had cared. They had a chance to make this work between them. It was beyond anything he’d allowed himself to wish for. So the elated smile that hadn’t left his face since Apollo’s only widened further when she stoutly gripped his hand for the remainder of their short walk back to the Normandy.

It felt like coming home, if he was honest. It wasn’t the SR-1, but it still held the same familiar smells, the same _whoosh_ of the decontamination bay. The CIC was all but empty as they headed wordlessly to the elevator – perks of shore leave, he thought, vaguely reminding himself of the regs they were technically breaking by being so brazen with their touch, their smiles, their closeness. He found he couldn’t bring himself to care. Apparently, neither did she.

He supposed that the possibility of the end of the world had that effect on people.

“Come up to my cabin with me, Major?” She asked teasingly, already pressing the button for the first floor. Captain’s quarters. He’d been informed of the newest addition to the Normandy, but had not yet seen it for himself. He smiled at her, thumb grazing over the back of her hand as the elevator lurched them slowly upward.

“I couldn’t well refuse an order from my Commander now, could I?” He quipped back, trying to identify the warm glow hidden behind her eyes. Happiness, to be sure. But something else, too, something he couldn’t quite put a finger on.

God, she was beautiful. More beautiful than he’d remembered, and he brought his other hand up to gently cup her face. Shepard closed her eyes with a contented sigh, a slight smile playing at her lips as she nuzzled gently into his palm.

“Commander Shepard, Major Alenko. Captain’s quarters.” EDI’s voice rang out softly as the floor stopped, the elevator opening soundly, and Shepard pulled him forward to her door with a slight hesitance.

“EDI, can you activate privacy mode? I don’t wish to be disturbed until further notice. Reroute any emergency notifications to my omni-tool if needed.” Shepard paused at the door, and Kaidan waited patiently for her to lead him in. The calm around them was pleasantly tinged with a hint of nervousness, the air a little thick.

“As you wish, Commander.” With a soft ping, Shepard’s door unlocked and she entered the foyer. Kaidan peered in curiously behind her. He didn’t know what he had expected, but it certainly wasn’t _this_.

“Be honest. The real reason you teamed with Cerberus was for the obvious perks.” He said with a chuckle. This was a luxury no regular Alliance fleet offered. “You said it was spacious, but I hadn’t realized that entailed your own personal apartment.” He teased, satisfied with her resounding laugh. 

“I grew pretty attached to this space during our Collectors mission. I can’t tell you how nice it is to be back.” She smiled over to him from the fish tank, feminine features swathed in a blue hue as the fish scuttled around. She still held a bit of reservation in her posture, and he heard a hint of vulnerability in her tone. She must have spent a lot of time up here, he realized. All those months she spent enlisting fighters willing to stand beside her on the Collectors base – _you declined_ , a nagging voice in the back of his mind said – he imagined she must have appreciated a space to recluse. This space was personal to her. He got the feeling that not many other people had seen it. 

Her eyes followed him as he walked into her office terminal – her model ship collection was impressive as hell, he thought with a boyish grin, but as he leaned forward to get a closer view, a holo-image sprang into sight from the corner of his eye.

Kaidan started when he realized he was staring at a picture of…himself. Right here on the desk, next to her personal computer. He stared at it silently, a myriad of emotions stirring in his chest. Shepard was quiet behind him, and very still. Kaidan could feel the tension radiating from her, and her slight hesitance from before clicked into place. She had been nervous to show him this, he realized. Grasping the holo in one hand, he gripped it tightly and turned to face her.

Her eyes met his evenly, but with that same unplaced emotion hidden in their depths. She was holding her breath, waiting for him to say something. Kaidan wet his lips hesitantly, his mouth suddenly dry.

“You…how long have you had this?” He asked her, voice hoarse. He felt like his heart was going to pound out of his chest. _I can’t bury what I feel for you anymore_.

“Since the day I moved in, almost a year ago. It was…the first item requisition I made, actually.” Shepard’s voice was tight with nervousness, or was it embarrassment? He wasn’t sure, but she’d certainly made no move to hide this from him. She had _wanted_ him to see this. His chest blossomed out in a warm, tingling sensation that struck down his spine and all the way into his fingertips. _They didn’t change me, Kaidan. Or how I feel about you_. Her words from Mars sprang into his mind suddenly, and he felt awash at the emotions this small gesture brought to him.

All that time he’d spent after Horizon thinking she didn’t care, but…she did. She always had. Shepard was eyeing him softly, hesitantly, still waiting for him to make the next move. He’d made plenty of bold moves today, but nothing could have prepared him for the emotional relief that consumed him now. He hadn’t realized how deeply the loss of her had hit him until he let her back in again. 

As gently as he could, Kaidan placed the holo-image back to its position before turning to look at her. “Thank you, Shepard. I needed that. It’s nice to know that I…that I wasn’t the only one doing the missing.” Her eyes lit up at this, face softening into a gesture of gratitude and eagerness. Encouragement. He knew his voice would be scratchy with emotion before he even opened it to speak. “God, I missed you. I missed you so much.” 

That was all it took. She strode over to him swiftly, his arms cradling her almost reflexively into a tight embrace.

She fit so snugly into his chest, and a contented smile broke out onto her face as she leaned back slightly to gaze up at him. Her eyes took in his features – he watched as they flitted up to the greying flecks of hair by his temples, across the strong ridge of his brows, all the way down to his lips. Leaning forward softly, ever so softly, she finally pressed her mouth against his.

He responded eagerly, moaning softly into her mouth, his lips brushing against hers with a gentle fervor. He’d missed this, the feel of her in his arms and the taste of her; he trailed his hands down to grip the small of her waist and pressed her tighter against him, trying to get as close to her as possible. He’d spent years trying to remember what she felt like – their time together had been so impossibly brief that some nights, he’d questioned whether it had happened at all.

There was no question now. He remembered, all at once, exactly why losing her had been so unimaginably painful. _Always leave yourself a way out, Alenko_. Not with this, not with her. He had left himself so vulnerable the first moment they’d kissed before Ilos so long ago, the connection just felt so unwaveringly _right_ with her.

Shepard had one hand gripping his hair as the other trailed around his back and grasped his shoulder, up his neck, cupping his jaw – she couldn’t get enough of him, and he fumbled trying to keep up to her. Their tongues wrestled softly and Kaidan heard her appreciative moan as he spanned his fingers along the span of her lithe back, one large hand gripping under the curve of her ass to snugly pull her in tighter. 

She broke away suddenly, chest heaving as she looked up at him. Her lips were swollen and red already, but as she slid her palm up to cup his face gently and just…stare at him, Kaidan felt his eyes travel back to meet her own gaze. He was panting a bit too, he realized, and he watched earnestly as she took a half step back and just drank in the sight of him. He met her scrutiny head-on, following her eyes as they drifted down the large expanse of his chest, his arms that were currently still gripping around her waist, noticed the appreciative glance she took at the rather snug condition of the front of his pants. 

To his surprise, when she met his eyes again it was at the sight of hers filled unmistakably with tears. He frowned disconcertedly. “Shepard...hey. If this is too much, we can take our time.” 

“No! No, this is perfect. I want this, I want…you.” His stomach flipped happily at her words. She slipped her fingers to twine between his again and looked at their hands contemplatively, as though she were battling with what she wanted to say next. “Kaidan, I just need to say something first.”

“Alright.” 

“I need you to…to understand. First, before we…” She swallowed thickly, rubbing her thumbs over the back of his hands. He could sense how important this was to her, and he leaned back to rest on her desk, eyes locked with hers as he waited patiently for her to continue. “I want you to know, that I don’t blame you for how you acted on Horizon. That no matter how much I wanted you to come with me – you wouldn’t be the man that I know you to be if you had, so I’m happy that you didn’t.” 

“I want you to know the last thought I had before I…before I _died_ , Kaidan, was of you. I want you to know that from the moment I opened my eyes in that lab, the first thing I looked for was you. I asked about _you_. I wanted…fuck, I wanted so badly to contact you but I had no way of getting a hold of you. One of the first things I did when Cerberus gave me this ship,” she flicked her head to the wall, maintaining a steady gaze on him, “was head to the Citadel to speak with Anderson. And the first thing I asked him about, Kaidan, was _you_. He stonewalled me, just like he stonewalled you.”

He was listening attentively, drinking her words in with surprise etched across his face. She continued with earnest, “I know why he did that, and it was the right thing to do, but…I had no way of contacting you. I only knew for certain that you’d be out there somewhere on the frontlines, helping the colonies. I knew the only thing I could do at that moment to even try to help was to stop the Collectors. It was the only thing I could think of to help you, to fight for you.”

Her words were tumbling out in earnest now, voice heavy as though she had been bottling this in for far longer than she’d liked.

“After Horizon, I…I thought I’d lost you for good. I knew, Kaidan, that it had been a long time. That I would be hoping for too much to think you’d still care. And I didn’t know how to explain – it’s unbelievable, what happened to me. Two years went by for you and yet for me, when I opened my eyes it felt like just yesterday when I ordered you off the Normandy. It had been over two years since you’d seen me, heard my voice, but for me it had felt like mere _weeks_.”

Her voice caught, and Kaidan opened his mouth to say something, but she gripped his hands harder and smiled at him brightly. “I’m not trying to make you feel guilty, Kaidan. I would have reacted the same way as you did if things had been reversed, if not worse.” She swallowed thickly, and one tear slipped out of the corner of her eye to trail down her cheek. “I wasn’t sensitive enough to that. I didn’t realize, until I’d gotten your letter, how…how difficult that must have been for you. I can only imagine, and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

The letter. Kaidan felt his stomach churn a bit at that. He’d spent more than a few nights penning it, was uncertain as to what it meant when she hadn’t replied. He’d thought, maybe, that what he’d said to her on Horizon had been too harsh, that he couldn’t be forgiven. 

“I want to make it clear, Kaidan, that I’m not sorry for the work I did with Cerberus. We stopped the Collectors, we did what I intended, and I’m not sorry for it.” Her words had a clip to them, and he watched as she took a deep, shuddering breath. “But I am sorry for what you had to experience, for any uncertainty you must have felt with my actions. Everything I’ve done was to do what I thought was right…and to keep you safe.” 

“And I need you to know,” she continued, her eyes glowing intensely, “that it was my memory of our night before Ilos that kept me going. It gave me a reason to fight. Maybe I had lost my chance with you, maybe you would never forgive me for working with Cerberus, but…that night meant everything to me, too. Don’t ever think for a second that it didn’t.” 

He swallowed thickly at her words, his heart pounding so hard he could hear the blood pounding in his ears. He loved her, he’d always loved her. He could admit that now. The emotional relief her words brought him felt like a punch to the chest; he suddenly felt as light as air. 

“With your permission, ma’am,” he finally spoke slowly, his voice low, the barest hint of a grin twitching at the corner of his mouth. “I’d like to bunk here tonight. With you.”

He watched as her eyes lit up, recognizing the ghost of her own words she’d spoken to him on that night so many years ago now. She stepped forward into his embrace, burying her head into his neck and sagging into him. That’s what she had wanted, he realized. She wanted him to understand. The burden he’d felt from her loss was the same burden she’d felt at being torn away from him. 

He didn’t know how long they held each other for, entangled tightly into one another propped up against her desk. All he knew was how good it felt to feel her against his skin, to have her back in his arms and be able to grip her that much tighter to him.

It wasn’t until she placed the barest of kisses to his neck that he shuddered involuntarily, reawakening the desire that still pooled low in his abdomen. They were soft, so gentle against his skin, her lips lighting a slow path to his mouth. 

When they met this time, it lacked the frantic urgency that had consumed him before. There would be plenty of opportunity for that later. For now, he wanted to explore every inch of her, to savor the taste of her mouth, to hear every satisfied whimper that escaped her lips by his own hands. He wanted to reacquaint himself with her body, to feel that she was really _alive_ and in his arms again. 

Their kisses were slow and languid. Kaidan drank every moment of her in – the feel of her breasts pressed up against his chest, the electric tingle her fingers left in their wake as they trailed slowly up his back, the way her lashes fluttered against her cheek when he pressed heavy kisses against her throat. She was so responsive to him, leaning her head back and moaning appreciatively as he smoothed his hands over the curve of her waist, bucking her hips ever so slightly against his thigh in an attempt to relieve some of the pressure.

He pressed a hand into the base of her spine, pulling her close enough to feel him, hard and thick against her groin. They both moaned at that; Shepard tore her lips away from his to pant softly against his mouth as she eagerly rubbed against him. “Kaidan…please.” 

He chuckled, ducking down to nip at her throat again as they shuffled unhurriedly to her bed. He pulled away from her when he felt his calves hit the end of the mattress, running his hands under the hem of her shirt as though asking for permission to remove it. There was entirely too much clothing between them; his need to feel her skin against his was unbearable. Shepard eagerly raised her hands up, making quick work of unclasping her bra and disposing of it on the floor. Before he even had a moment to drink in the sight, she was untucking his shirt and clamoring it up and over his head, his dog tags clinking around his neck in her haste. 

Shepard pushed down roughly his shoulders, forcing him to sit at the edge of the bed as she straddled his lap. _There_. Kaidan buried his face into her neck as their skin made contact. It felt unreal to feel the warmth of her back beneath his palms, unriddled by clothing. She was real. She was really here, alive and sitting across his waist. He kissed down her collarbone, between the valley of her breasts, nuzzling them gently as she scratched appreciative nails through his hair. 

“I missed this. I missed you. I didn’t think…I didn’t think I’d ever get to hold you like this again.” Kaidan’s voice came out thicker than he intended, the unexpected emotion he felt at holding her in his arms getting stuck in his throat. He took a shuddering breath against her chest, remembering how many nights he’d spent envisioning moments with her that he thought he’d lost forever at Alchera. “Shepard, I can’t lose you again. I _can’t_.”

“Kaidan…” Her voice was choked too, and when she tugged his head up to kiss her he could taste the saltiness of her tears. She was more urgent now, pushing him to slide up the bed until he sat, his back up against the bedframe. He watched her breathlessly as she scrabbled at his belt, making haste of his pants and tugging them eagerly down his legs. Her eyes were bright with determined passion as she hastily disposed of her own clothes before crawling back up to him. 

“So beautiful.” He said heavily, taking in the sight of her naked form, breasts bouncing with each movement forward, the light of the fish tank casting an ethereal bluish glow behind the feminine curve of her hips. She stopped suddenly, her legs straddled on either side of his thighs. The sight of her spread open before him did nothing to quell the pulsing he felt in his cock; he was so hard he almost felt dizzy. She was so fucking beautiful.

“So are you.” She said simply as she reached out to touch his chest, sliding her fingers across his pecs and down his abdomen, stopping just shy of his briefs. She liked what she saw; he could see the glistening at the apex of her thighs, could smell the scent of her arousal and it was so fucking enticing that Kaidan was a little breathless under her ministrations. “You have scars…I don’t remember these.” 

“…I’ll tell you about them.” He brought his hands up, resting them on the sides of her legs and sliding them up slowly, up the flat planes of her stomach and finally cupping her breasts in his hands. He moaned, shifting his hips subtly in an attempt to relieve the pressure in his groin as he watched her nipples harden beneath his fingertips. So beautiful. “You’ll get to know them as well as I do. I’m…yours.” He said as evenly as he could.

Her smile was brilliant. “And I’m yours. I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere. Not again.” With that she dropped one hand to cup him through his briefs; he hissed in pleasure at her touch. It had been too long since he’d last been touched…since he’d last been with her. She hummed happily at his response, tugging the material down over his hips to release him from the uncomfortable confines. Gripping his bare cock tightly her hands, she ran her hand slowly down his length, watching with bated breath as he panted helplessly with pleasure, staring up at her dazedly. 

He _needed_ to be inside of her. He was too wound up; it took an enormous effort for him to grasp her fingers from around the base of his cock, removing her hand and kissing it appreciatively. “Shepard, please.” He groaned, pulling on her hips. She acquiesced with a tender smile, shuffling up the last inch to bring her arousal up against his groin. 

_Wet_. God, she was so wet, so _warm_ , and she slid his cock teasingly through her folds with a gentle sigh, her arms folded around his shoulders to brace herself. Kaidan thrust up against her eagerly; the friction was a welcome relief to the pressure building low in his gut. But it wasn’t quite enough.

One petite hand cupped the side of his face softly, urging him to look into her eyes as she dropped the other to grasp him once more. That was all it took; she shifted her hips up and sat forcefully down onto his cock with a gasp. 

“Fuck.” He choked, eyes closing tightly and head lolling back with a resolute thump against the wall. Tight, she was so _tight_ , so warm and wet and welcoming. He could feel the length of him stretching into her, her ass pressed down onto his balls in an effort to take every inch of him as deeply as she could. 

They sat there for a moment, just relishing this renewed closeness. She began to pepper his face with tiny kisses, his hands coaxing there way lazily from the base of her neck and down her back, fingertips brushing up and along her thighs as he pulled her that much tighter toward him. He would never get tired of just feeling her, feeling the heat of her skin beneath his palms.

And then she began to move. 

Shepard pressed a kiss to his lips just as she raised her hips experimentally, lifting just so, before dropping down again slowly. “ _Fuck_ ,” he moaned against her mouth with a hiss, “you feel so good.” She was so slick, her walls gripping his cock tightly so that each movement made his head spin with pleasure. 

She moaned in agreement, cradling his head between her hands, running her fingers through his hair as she dropped her forehead against his, panting against his lips. “I thought about this…all the time. I missed you.”

Her voice trembled; Kaidan had a hard time pulling his mind away from the feeling of her body, slick against his as she rode him at a tortuously slow pace. He dragged his eyes up from where they were joined, catching her determined gaze. “I missed you, too,” he choked.

It was too much. All of this; they’d been together so briefly before Alchera and there had been so much _confusion_ since then. So much time, wasted, before they could be together like this again. Kaidan gripped her tighter, one hand cradling her back and the other slipping to cup the curve under her ass. He couldn’t believe this was real, for a moment. That Shepard was here with him, that he was inside of her, that they still had a shot at this.

“You can’t do that to me again, do you understand?” His voice came out thicker than he intended, and she nodded frantically at his words. “I mean it, Shepard. I can’t –” He stopped his words with a low moan as she increased her pace, pulling her forehead back from his to pull herself upright, nearly allowing him to slip out before settling herself down his length. “God, I can’t _lose_ you, this, not again…” 

“ _Kaidan_.” She breathed his name and he was struggling to maintain composure at the sight of her. She was bouncing eagerly in his lap, his words stirring renewed purpose. 

Kaidan felt a tightening in his groin and he couldn’t resist slamming his hips up to meet her eager downward thrusts. He didn’t know where to look, exactly – at the bouncing of her breasts, the light sheen of sweat that showed all the hard plains of her stomach, the sight of himself disappearing inside of her as she took him again, and again, and again. He felt his control slip when he finally gazed up at her through half-lidded eyes, at watching her appreciative moans spill through her perfect lips as she enjoyed herself upon him.

It tingled, in a pleasurable way, to feel the slight buzz of biotic energy flourish around the skin. Kaidan never let himself slip, not when it came to his biotics, and certainly never in bed. At least, not until _now_. 

“Shepard…” He hissed through clenched teeth as he gripped her hips almost painfully, trying to regain his composure. But it felt so _good_ , the tingling blue hue of biotic energy snaked down his spine and right into his groin. Her eyes snapped open as she realized what was happening, a beautiful smile gracing her face.

“Don’t stop, Kaidan. It’s okay.” She panted, leaning forward to capture his mouth with a kiss. “Let it go.”

He moaned into her mouth, sliding his tongue up against hers as her skin began to glow azure from the contact. She’d always accepted his biotics, always admired and revered his talents with them, but never had he imagined that he could share them with her in this way. Her legs quaked around him and he could feel she was close; her thrusts became shallow, rhythm uneven.

He relinquished just a tiny bit more, watched as her frame lit up like a blue flare and she finally tore her mouth away to sob brokenly in his lap as she came. Her spine straightened, arms locked behind his neck and she cried his name out unabashedly into the room. It was the most beautiful fucking thing he had ever seen.

It was also exactly what he needed to push himself over the edge. Her walls fluttered invitingly along his length, a sudden rush of warmth dripping from where they were joined. Kaidan gripped her ass and thrust up heavily, losing himself to her warm and welcoming body. She was pliant in his hands, still dazed from her orgasm as he thrust roughly into her hard and heavy with no restraint. A deep moan stirred from his chest as he felt the pressure in his cock finally release; he buried himself as deeply as he could in a dazzling stream of pleasure that made his eyes roll back.

His vision spotted as the blue hue of his biotics finally fizzled and dissipated. They lay there for many minutes, panting heavily, foreheads pressed one another as they tried to catch their breath. Kaidan said the only thing he could think to say in a moment such as this. 

“I love you.”

He felt her smile against his cheek. She lifted her head to meet his eyes, a look of utmost calm upon her face. It wasn’t until her thumbs grazed under his eyes did he realize that he had let a few tears escape, too. 

“I love you too, Kaidan.” Her soft words sent a wave of calm over him, and he pulled her in tightly to embrace her once more. They lay there contentedly for a few moments, still joined, Shepard giving him a relaxed sigh as he ran his hands soothingly up and down her back. She eventually placed a tender kiss to his cheek, pulling back slightly with a mischievous grin. “Say Major, why did it take you three whole years to show me that little biotic bed trick? I can’t believe you were holding out on me.” 

Kaidan laughed loudly at that. “To be honest, I’ve never had that happen before. Looks like I can add that to my repertoire. You, ah, really seemed to enjoy that.”

“I most definitely did.” Her voice flirted huskily, and he felt a low stirring in his groin again.

“Watch it, Shepard,” He growled. “If you aren’t careful I’ll have to take you again. And this time, you’ll let me have my way with you, _not_ the other way around.”

“Hmm, did you have a complaint with the view, Major?” She teased, waggling an eyebrow at him.

“No, no, the view was…beyond spectacular.” He said with a breezy chuckle, eyes raking over her naked form still sprawled atop of him. “But, ah, you see, you skipped ahead to the main course. I’m more of an appetizer man. I like to take my time.” 

“Well, Major. Last I checked, you and I were on shore leave. For three whole days, if memory serves me right. And seeing as it is only…” she turned her head to peek over at the bedside clock, “seven-thirty on Citadel time, I’d say that you have plenty of time to enjoy a late dinner. Appetizers and all.” 

Half chuckling, half moaning at her words, Kaidan flipped her underneath him in a flash, pressing lazy kisses down her throat. He had been wrong. He’d thought their date at Apollo’s had been a successful sanity check. But it wasn’t until he had his face buried between Shepard’s thighs, hearing her voice moan his name as she ran appreciative fingers through his hair, that he finally felt the sanest he had ever felt in his entire fucking life.


End file.
